krazd_kat
Help "Invisible Dogs"
This message being brought to you by your local kill shelters and rescue groups.
Many times we get applications from younger people/families that are in a position where their life could change (i.e. move suddenly/often) and when we ask what will happen to the dog or cat, their first answer is “my parents will take it”. That answer never sits well with me.
Life changes, sometimes over night. You never know when your health is going to change or the health of someone you love and you are forced to change your living arrangements. No longer is it just you and your immediate family in your home but someone else had to move in. Or you have had to move in with your parents to help care for them.
Suddenly you are homeless for whatever reason (divorce, eviction, foreclosure). Your family says you can come, but your dogs can’t. Your friends give you the same answer. You can’t find an affordable place to rent that will allow your dogs. :shrug:
Too many times are dogs surrendered to shelters or rescues because:
1. as the dog got bigger they could no longer handle it
2. my dog hates other dogs
3. my dog won’t stay in my yard
4. my dog destroys everything
5. my dog knocks down the children
6. my dog is too big to live in such a crowded home
7. my dog might accidentally knock down my frail parents.
Guess what… All those problems are one’s that were under your control, things you could have fixed before they ever started, or if it was an adopted or stray that you decided to keep, these are things that could be fixed with training classes, training books, discipline and consistency.
We just took a dog back into rescue (it’s in our contract), this dog was adopted as a puppy, 4 years ago. The adopter’s son went to college and she had to move in with her mother in DC that has a brain tumor. And of course the dogs couldn’t stay there.
I can’t help but believe that: 1) if the dog didn’t jump on everyone it saw (80+ lbs) and walked better on leash, it might have been able to stay or at least have found one of her friends (everyone loved this dog
) that would have been happy to take him for her. Thankfully he has an awesome temperament like all of his siblings appear to have.
As far as adopting him back out, we are lucky in the fact that family members of another siblings adopter fell in love with that dog, came and met him, love him and believe his lack of manners can be fixed. Once their fence is done he will have a home. A home that is willing to work with him and make him a good member of doggie society.
When I first got on my own place and dogs, it wasn’t as important to keep your dog socialized with other dogs, they weren’t taken as many places or welcome many places. These days’ people want to take their dogs shopping, down main street, to day care, to dog parks, it’s more important to keep your dogs socialized than ever before. Now, not all dogs are dog park material, but most dogs (of any breed), can be taught to be dog tolerant, to where if you have to move in with someone else the dogs might at least be able to co-exist with a gate between them, or one in a crate (crate and rotate).
Crates…. Most all of our foster dogs are crate trained since most foster homes have multiple dogs. We often get comments that crating is cruel.
I had a lady call me a few years ago, her Great Dane had just ate her iPod and that was it, she was tired of it tearing things up when she wasn’t home. I asked her about crating it… she said it was crate trained, but considered it cruel. I asked her, what’s crueler… giving the dog to a stranger, a dog YOU have loved since it was a puppy, a stranger that is in most likelihood going to crate it while they are at work and a home with multiple dogs (while it’s used to being an only dog) or you can always take it to the local kill shelter….
RESCUE - Now if we are lucky we will be able to find YOUR beloved dog “another” new home. Another new environment, new rules, new schedules.
That’s okay, dogs are adaptable and 99.8% of the time they adapt and they love their new home and their new owners. They no longer have the runs from a new food and their new owner finally learned the sign that meant they needed to go outside. Hopefully, the new owner can learn to love the traits this dog brought with them and work thru any issues and it won’t come back to rescue. Remember, this is the dog YOU love and only want the best for.
What’s crueler? Crating it for 7-10 hours a day and spending a relaxed evening with it (because you aren’t yelling at it since it didn’t destroy anything). Or is giving YOUR dog away to live like I mention above crueler? Before I started doing rescue, I chose putting my dogs back into their crates during the day, vice me being so pissed when I walked in and saw the damage. We all hope that eventually the crate can be a thing of the past and for most dogs it can be.
SHELTER - As an “owner surrender” they can be killed before you even leave the parking lot if they need the space or they decide that the dog “you” love really isn’t adoptable. (While we are on this topic, some places say they are NOT kill shelters, be sure to read the small print on the form you sign, not just listen to the nice lady behind the counter, those forms might state on them that you are acknowledging your pet may be sent to a shelter and be euthanized.) If they are busy, don’t worry they might not have time to kill him till tomorrow morning, but that’s okay, he’s still alive and you aren’t being cruel. He’s in a cage (but he’s crate trained) on a cement floor with a towel to lay on, surrounded by other dogs barking and howling. Dog’s are sensitive and I do believe they smell the death that is in that place.
Don’t despair yet, “if” your dog is adoptable, they will stay in that cage for a week, 2 weeks, sometimes longer (depending on how it’s “adjusting” to shelter life). Dogs are adaptable, it’s now learned to live with all the barking, howling, people staring at it and the smell of death. It might even get sick from the stray dogs that come into the shelter and wind up dead because of that. If your dog isn’t adopted through the shelter and rescue didn’t have room, he/she is still going to die.
What was crueler? You using a crate, or your beloved companion going through 2 weeks of hell and then dying anyway?
IMHO if that is the only option to you, YOU OWE it to your companion to take him to the vet and have her/him humanely euthanized while you apologize for letting them down.
Most of my personal dogs have always walked in and curled up into an open crate to sleep, as that was their comfortable and safe place. Other reasons to crate train:
1. If your dog ever has to spend time at the vet for surgery, being crated doesn’t cause it more stress, it’s already used to it.
2. If your dog needs to be on rest after a surgical procedure, crates make it so much easier.
3. If you have to evacuate due to natural disaster or man-made, many evacuation shelters are now allowing CRATED dogs.
4. If you had to evacuate and needed a place for your dogs to stay in an emergency, they might be more willing to open their home if they know the dog will go in its crate and not go ballistic.
5. Hotels might be willing to let you stay if your dogs are crated (when we moved here we had 5 dogs, all over 70 lbs, we didn’t have a single hotel turn us down when we guaranteed the dogs would be crated.
I am very thankful that the stray dog (from my other thread) was crate trained. He’s a pretty solid dog and could hurt another dog if he wanted to, plus bringing home strange dogs I always feel better knowing exactly where they are. I set a crate up for him and I’m driving home with him thinking, WTH am I going to do with him while I look for the owner…. He walked in the door, right into the crate sat down and looked at me.
I’m sure there are more reasons for manners & crate training your dog than I listed here, but I honestly believe that a well trained, well mannered, crate trained dog is going to be welcome in more places than a dog that has no manners.
(Sorry for the length, been on my mind since this dog came back!)
Many times we get applications from younger people/families that are in a position where their life could change (i.e. move suddenly/often) and when we ask what will happen to the dog or cat, their first answer is “my parents will take it”. That answer never sits well with me.
Life changes, sometimes over night. You never know when your health is going to change or the health of someone you love and you are forced to change your living arrangements. No longer is it just you and your immediate family in your home but someone else had to move in. Or you have had to move in with your parents to help care for them.
Suddenly you are homeless for whatever reason (divorce, eviction, foreclosure). Your family says you can come, but your dogs can’t. Your friends give you the same answer. You can’t find an affordable place to rent that will allow your dogs. :shrug:
Too many times are dogs surrendered to shelters or rescues because:
1. as the dog got bigger they could no longer handle it
2. my dog hates other dogs
3. my dog won’t stay in my yard
4. my dog destroys everything
5. my dog knocks down the children
6. my dog is too big to live in such a crowded home
7. my dog might accidentally knock down my frail parents.
Guess what… All those problems are one’s that were under your control, things you could have fixed before they ever started, or if it was an adopted or stray that you decided to keep, these are things that could be fixed with training classes, training books, discipline and consistency.
We just took a dog back into rescue (it’s in our contract), this dog was adopted as a puppy, 4 years ago. The adopter’s son went to college and she had to move in with her mother in DC that has a brain tumor. And of course the dogs couldn’t stay there.
I can’t help but believe that: 1) if the dog didn’t jump on everyone it saw (80+ lbs) and walked better on leash, it might have been able to stay or at least have found one of her friends (everyone loved this dog
) that would have been happy to take him for her. Thankfully he has an awesome temperament like all of his siblings appear to have. As far as adopting him back out, we are lucky in the fact that family members of another siblings adopter fell in love with that dog, came and met him, love him and believe his lack of manners can be fixed. Once their fence is done he will have a home. A home that is willing to work with him and make him a good member of doggie society.
When I first got on my own place and dogs, it wasn’t as important to keep your dog socialized with other dogs, they weren’t taken as many places or welcome many places. These days’ people want to take their dogs shopping, down main street, to day care, to dog parks, it’s more important to keep your dogs socialized than ever before. Now, not all dogs are dog park material, but most dogs (of any breed), can be taught to be dog tolerant, to where if you have to move in with someone else the dogs might at least be able to co-exist with a gate between them, or one in a crate (crate and rotate).
Crates…. Most all of our foster dogs are crate trained since most foster homes have multiple dogs. We often get comments that crating is cruel.
I had a lady call me a few years ago, her Great Dane had just ate her iPod and that was it, she was tired of it tearing things up when she wasn’t home. I asked her about crating it… she said it was crate trained, but considered it cruel. I asked her, what’s crueler… giving the dog to a stranger, a dog YOU have loved since it was a puppy, a stranger that is in most likelihood going to crate it while they are at work and a home with multiple dogs (while it’s used to being an only dog) or you can always take it to the local kill shelter….
RESCUE - Now if we are lucky we will be able to find YOUR beloved dog “another” new home. Another new environment, new rules, new schedules.
That’s okay, dogs are adaptable and 99.8% of the time they adapt and they love their new home and their new owners. They no longer have the runs from a new food and their new owner finally learned the sign that meant they needed to go outside. Hopefully, the new owner can learn to love the traits this dog brought with them and work thru any issues and it won’t come back to rescue. Remember, this is the dog YOU love and only want the best for.
What’s crueler? Crating it for 7-10 hours a day and spending a relaxed evening with it (because you aren’t yelling at it since it didn’t destroy anything). Or is giving YOUR dog away to live like I mention above crueler? Before I started doing rescue, I chose putting my dogs back into their crates during the day, vice me being so pissed when I walked in and saw the damage. We all hope that eventually the crate can be a thing of the past and for most dogs it can be.
SHELTER - As an “owner surrender” they can be killed before you even leave the parking lot if they need the space or they decide that the dog “you” love really isn’t adoptable. (While we are on this topic, some places say they are NOT kill shelters, be sure to read the small print on the form you sign, not just listen to the nice lady behind the counter, those forms might state on them that you are acknowledging your pet may be sent to a shelter and be euthanized.) If they are busy, don’t worry they might not have time to kill him till tomorrow morning, but that’s okay, he’s still alive and you aren’t being cruel. He’s in a cage (but he’s crate trained) on a cement floor with a towel to lay on, surrounded by other dogs barking and howling. Dog’s are sensitive and I do believe they smell the death that is in that place.
Don’t despair yet, “if” your dog is adoptable, they will stay in that cage for a week, 2 weeks, sometimes longer (depending on how it’s “adjusting” to shelter life). Dogs are adaptable, it’s now learned to live with all the barking, howling, people staring at it and the smell of death. It might even get sick from the stray dogs that come into the shelter and wind up dead because of that. If your dog isn’t adopted through the shelter and rescue didn’t have room, he/she is still going to die.
What was crueler? You using a crate, or your beloved companion going through 2 weeks of hell and then dying anyway?
IMHO if that is the only option to you, YOU OWE it to your companion to take him to the vet and have her/him humanely euthanized while you apologize for letting them down.
Most of my personal dogs have always walked in and curled up into an open crate to sleep, as that was their comfortable and safe place. Other reasons to crate train:
1. If your dog ever has to spend time at the vet for surgery, being crated doesn’t cause it more stress, it’s already used to it.
2. If your dog needs to be on rest after a surgical procedure, crates make it so much easier.
3. If you have to evacuate due to natural disaster or man-made, many evacuation shelters are now allowing CRATED dogs.
4. If you had to evacuate and needed a place for your dogs to stay in an emergency, they might be more willing to open their home if they know the dog will go in its crate and not go ballistic.
5. Hotels might be willing to let you stay if your dogs are crated (when we moved here we had 5 dogs, all over 70 lbs, we didn’t have a single hotel turn us down when we guaranteed the dogs would be crated.
I am very thankful that the stray dog (from my other thread) was crate trained. He’s a pretty solid dog and could hurt another dog if he wanted to, plus bringing home strange dogs I always feel better knowing exactly where they are. I set a crate up for him and I’m driving home with him thinking, WTH am I going to do with him while I look for the owner…. He walked in the door, right into the crate sat down and looked at me.
I’m sure there are more reasons for manners & crate training your dog than I listed here, but I honestly believe that a well trained, well mannered, crate trained dog is going to be welcome in more places than a dog that has no manners.
(Sorry for the length, been on my mind since this dog came back!)
